Monthly Archives: September 2018

Yesterday the governor made requisition on the Utah authorities for the extradition of Harry Morgan and Jane Doe, alias “The Candy Kid,” whose true name is unknown. They are charged by Anton Fritz of Portland with larceny from the person. Fritz claims he was robbed about 12 o’clock on the night of Saturday, August 28th, last, of $9,400 near the white temple in Portland. His statement has since been denied but Joe Day now claims he has the guilty parties under arrest at Salt Lake City and will bring them back to Oregon for trial. He claims to have located $4,500 of the stolen money in a safe deposit vault in Chicago.

— Statesman Journal (Salem, Oregon), October 3, 1906

She was huddled in the shadows of the covered entryway to the First Baptist Church (The White Temple) in downtown Portland, Oregon, crying loud enough to attract his attention. Anton Fritz went up the church steps and asked her what was wrong. She told him her husband had run off with all their worldly goods, leaving her and their baby with nothing. She said she was going to kill herself. Her tale tugged at his heartstrings, so he gave her a few dollars. Overwhelmed by his generosity she gave him a hug. They parted and he continued on his way, not realizing that his pocket had been picked until he arrived at his lodgings. This was one reported version of how Anton was robbed.

White Temple Baptist Church Portland, OR

Another, more unsavory, story was that Anton was drunk and the woman picked him up and took him to a “secluded spot” where she robbed him.

The third account was that Anton offered to get her a room for the night at the hotel where he was lodging. She gratefully accepted and the next morning he discovered his money was gone.

The woman robber was dubbed “The Candy Kid,” and along with Harry Morgan — the man described as her partner in the caper — she was said to have fled Portland with $9,400 (over $260,000 in 2018) of Anton’s money.

Born in Germany in 1848, Anton Fritz and his wife, Johanna, arrived in the United States in 1881. They settled in Smithton, Pennsylvania, where Anton made his living as a butcher. One day he discovered skunks feeding on the offal near his slaughterhouse. Skunk fur was a hot commodity at the time and he seized on this as a fresh business opportunity. He began to raise skunks and sell their pelts. Anton had 700 skunks at one point and was known locally as “The Skunk Farmer.”

Soon he had enough capital to get into a less odoriferous profession. He moved his wife and six children to Monessen, Pennsylvania, where he invested in real estate, eventually owning three hotels, including one he named “Hotel Fritz.”

Johanna had a stroke and died in 1904, the same year Anton built an opera house in Monessen. The project was a money sink. The opera house and Anton’s other real estate holdings overextended his finances. He was forced to borrow large sums of money and was unable to repay his creditors.

Anton skipped town, taking with him about $18,000 (almost half a million dollars in 2018) in cash. The creditors tried to locate him but were told that he’d returned to his homeland. Deciding it was futile to try to find him in a foreign country, they eventually gave up the chase.

Anton had not left America. He’d headed west to Portland, where he had a younger brother, Fred Fritz, who owned a large saloon on Burnside Street. Anton didn’t trust banks and carried all his cash with him in a leather wallet he kept inside his jacket. He had a bad habit of flashing his cash around at the saloon and this may be what led to the robbery.

Rather than go to the police, who might alert his creditors to the fact that he was still in the country, Anton hired a private eye named Joe Day to try to track down the thieves on the Q.T. The timing was perfect for Joe, who’d just been fired from the Portland Police Department and was in need of a new income stream.

Born in New Orleans in 1851, Joseph Day traveled to the west coast with his family while he was still a babe in arms. He became a Portland cop in 1881 and rose to the rank of detective. He loved being a detective (he named his son William Pinkerton Day) but he had an independent streak that infuriated his superiors. Things came to a head when the chief of police complained to the mayor and police board that Joe and several other detectives were undisciplined, rogue officers who cursed constantly, never informed him of their activities and tolerated criminal activity in Portland. The mayor dismissed him and five other detectives in August 1906, saying that they hadn’t earned their salaries and had to go.

Detective Joe Day

Anton also had a problem with Joe — the detective couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He told the newspapers that Anton’s cash had drawn the attention of two regulars at the Fritz saloon, “The Candy Kid” and her partner, Harry Morgan. He described the pair as “colored criminals” with records in other states and also claimed that Harry was also a “stool pigeon” for the Portland police.

Evenutally the press figured out that the real name of “The Candy Kid” was Leora Worlds. She was also known as Clara, Alice or Laura Adams and Clara Morgan.

Joe put out the word that “The Candy Kid” and Harry had headed east to Chicago, spending lavishly as they traveled. It was rumored that she hired a couple of men in Chicago to kill Harry, but that one of them lost his nerve and instead blabbed to Joe about the plan.

In Salt Lake City, Utah, the police wired Joe that they had arrested the couple. Joe and Fred Fritz went to the Salt Lake City jail but extradition papers mysteriously never arrived from Oregon. A few days later the pair were discharged for lack of evidence.

What happened to the money is a matter of speculation. It was reported that Joe took a bribe of $2000 to get Anton to drop the matter, with Leora and Harry receiving $4500 and whatever cash remained being returned to Anton. The police chief in Salt Lake City went on record that no bribes had been offered under his watch.

However by the time Leora and Harry were released from custody, Anton had completely changed his story. He claimed that his saloon-owner brother, Fred, robbed him with the assistance of Joe and other people he refused to name. He said the tale of Leora and Harry robbing him was a “bluff.”

It was true that Fred Fritz had need for cash. He had a gambling problem that had cost him over $1000 in fines by 1905. He was also fined repeatedly for serving liquor at the vaudeville theater he owned next door to the saloon.

Two months later Anton laid down on the railroad tracks in front of an oncoming train in San Fernando, California. The train decapitated him and his head was discovered not far from the tracks. His death was thought to be suicide, though no note was found. A small sum of money, a check and some jewelry were found with his body. His attorney noted that prior to his death Anton was “mentally unbalanced.”

Joe was eventually rehired by the Portland Police Department. He was later reduced to the uniformed ranks but he stayed on and ended his career as a policeman in 1926. He died ten years later in Portland.

Leora was arrested for vagrancy in Portland in 1910. She told the arresting officers she had done no “job.” The news article about her arrest referred to her as “The Candy Kid” and erroneously described her as “one of the star female criminals of the Pacific coast.”

The reason Leora was called “The Candy Kid” remains a mystery to this day. My guess is that Detective Joe Day gave her the nickname. Written on the back of a news copy of her mugshot photo is the notation “DAY,” but precisely why he called her that I can’t say.

Though no one was ever charged with the robbery of Anton Fritz, the rumor that Leora did it continued for at least 30 years.

AFFIRMED.—The case of the state vs. Elizabeth Wohlman, for grand larceny, was affirmed in the Supreme Court yesterday, and the defendant committed to the County Jail for safe keeping until such time as it is convenient to take her to the Penitentiary. The defendant, together with Catharine Martin and Augusta Goetz, living in Belleville, came to this city on the 8th of November 1861, and visited many stores for the ostensible purpose of purchasing goods. They visited the jewelry stores of Cappel, Crane, Jackard, (sic) and others, and the hat and fur store of Mr. Gray. From each of these stores they stole jewelry, and were detected in the store of Eugene Jaccard, in the act of putting some jewelry in the basket which one of them carried.

— Daily Missouri Republican (St. Louis), April 27, 1864

Her hair is oiled, parted in the middle, and worn close to her head in a tight bun. One hand peeks out from a heavy, striped shawl that’s draped across her shoulders and pinned over a knotted scarf around her neck. From her pierced ears hang beautiful earrings, possibly made of gold. Yet something is off about the photo. The woman’s expression is worried and frightened, even a touch angry, and one of her eyes seems to stare directly at the viewer, while the other gazes disconcertingly off camera.

Her name was Elizabeth Wohlman, and it’s no surprise she looks unhappy. Shortly before her likeness was captured, she and several family members were arrested at gunpoint outside of Eugene Jaccard & Co., a luxury goods store near the St. Louis riverfront. After being unceremoniously hauled off to the city jail and searched by police officers on that fateful day in November 1861, Wohlman was charged with shoplifting.

This extraordinarily detailed image exists because the St. Louis Police Department began taking photographs of suspects and criminals for the purpose of identification in October 1857. The portraits were hung in a public place in the police station, and citizens were encouraged to walk through and examine what soon became known as the “rogues’ gallery.” Many other American cities followed St. Louis’s lead and started rogues’ galleries of their own, but few of those photographs still exist today.

St. Louis City Jail, located at the southeast corner of Sixth and Chestnut, 1850. Daguerreotype by Thomas Easterly. Missouri Historical Society Collections.

A group of nearly 200 photos from the first 10 years of the St. Louis rogues’ gallery miraculously survived and was donated to the Missouri Historical Society by the police department in 1953. Several of the images, including the ambrotype of Wohlman, are identified with handwritten notes on the reverse side.

I discovered the collection while searching for mid-19th-century photos of “typical” German immigrants living in St. Louis, with the goal of getting a better understanding of what my ancestors, who immigrated to St. Louis during that period, looked like. The rogues’ gallery, which includes the likenesses of immigrants and native-born Americans, fascinated me, so I decided to research all the identified people using genealogical resources.

Elizabeth Wohlman is special for several reasons. She’s one of only three women in the collection and the only woman identified by name. Additionally, few women anywhere were photographed for rogues’ galleries because mid-19th-century Americans found it difficult to accept the idea that women committed crimes. This makes Wohlman’s photo exceptionally rare.

There’s more to know about Wohlman’s life, her crime, and the price she paid for it, along with many others whose photos were taken for the “illustrious collection,” as one St. Louis newspaper described it. Grab a copy of Captured and Exposed to begin exploring their stories on your favorite eBook device, then head to the Missouri History Museum to see their portraits on display once again (September 22, 2018 – March 10, 2019) in the new Atrium exhibit, The St. Louis Rogues’ Gallery.

Ernest Perez was 21 years old and a native of Mexico. His first name fits his gaze as he looks seriously up at the camera. The photographer could not have asked for a more beautiful light in which to take Ernest’s mugshot.

He was arrested on October 7, 1922, for petit larceny, details unknown. The jail warden thought he was reliable or he wouldn’t have made him a “trusty” — the inmate in charge of disciplining other prisoners when they were at work outside the jail. If you weren’t into power trips, being the trusty would have been an awful job.

After serving 20 days in the Yuba County jail in Marysville, with 80 more to go, Ernest saw his chance. He took “french leave” and headed into the wild blue yonder of California.

Charles J. McCoy sent out wanted letter after Ernest disappeared, hoping that an officer of the law would see it and see Ernest and arrest him and return him to jail to finish his time.

A police officer prior to being elected sheriff of Yuba County, in 1914, Charles followed his father, Hank McCoy, to the job. He remained in the job for 31 years.

It’s not possible to catch up with Ernest and find out what he did with the rest of his life. Hopefully he found a way to make a good, honest living, but as a Mexican living in 1920s America, that would not have been an easy task.

Like this:

Yesterday afternoon, Lieut. Spear, of the Tenth Police District, received an anonymous letter stating that the body of a young lady was lying in a house in Jefferson Street, below Second, and intimating that the death was caused by vio’ence.

— Public Ledger (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), March 8, 1859

Hannah Jane Toppin’s body lay on a bed in a third floor room in Martha Hudson’s Philadelphia home. She suffered for days before finally dying on March 7, 1859 — her nineteenth birthday.

Martha knew Hannah’s death would not stay a secret for long. She packed her bags and was out the door of her Jefferson Street row house a few hours after the young girl took her last breath.

The following day Hannah’s father, Henry Toppin, went to the Hudson home after he heard a rumor that his missing daughter had died there. He identified the body as Hannah’s and the police were called. They arrested John Hudson but could not locate his wife.

Hannah was a first generation child of Irish immigrants. Her father worked as a weaver. Hannah and her three brothers attended school as youngsters, but once they reached their teen years they worked to help with the family finances.

Hannah worked in a hat store on Second Street where she met a mechanic named Robert Dunlap. They began spending time together and soon Hannah feared the worst — that she was enceinte. She hid her fears from her parents but confessed her worries to a cousin. Unable to keep the secret, the cousin soon spilled the beans to Hannah’s parents.

Henry and Jane Toppin informed their only daughter that they knew her secret. Hannah told them she had a plan to visit Mrs. Hudson’s herb shop, where she’d heard she could get a natural remedy to end her pregnancy.

Her parents forbade her to leave the house but two weeks later she was gone. She spent the next four weeks at Martha Hudson’s house.

Dr. S. P. Brown performed a postmortem exam on Hannah’s body. He testified at the inquest that the membrane around Hannah’s bowels had been perforated by an instrument and was “highly inflamed.” Her death was the result of peritonitis due to the perforation of her bowel. Jane Fletcher, a woman who lived with the Hudsons and who nursed Hannah before she died, testified that her death was slow and agonizing.

Dr. Brown also stated that Hannah was not pregnant when she died. Whether she’d had a miscarriage earlier or whether the pregnancy had been a false alarm was unknown, however Dr. Brown stated that, in his opinion, Hannah was mistaken in thinking she was pregnant.

The inquest verdict was that Martha Hudson caused Hannah’s death while trying to induce an abortion. John Hudson and Robert Dunlap were held as accessories before the fact. Martha, however, was still missing.

In late March a New York City policeman saw a woman leave a dry-goods store “laboring under great excitement.” He thought she might be a shoplifter so he followed her to a house on West Thirty-First Street and spoke to the man who rented her a room there. The man told the officer that her name was Mrs. Brown and that she was in “great disquietude due to family difficulties.” The officer told him to keep an eye on her and left. Later he read in a newspaper about the death of Hannah Toppin and the search for Martha Hudson. He thought “Mrs. Brown” might be Martha Hudson, so he returned to the house and spoke to her. She confessed to being the wanted woman.

Martha was returned to Philadelphia where she was held on a charge of murder in the second degree, meaning intentional murder without premeditation, but with malice aforethought.

At the trial Dr. D. S. Brown (not the Dr. Brown who performed the postmortem) testified that Martha called on him two days before Hannah died and begged him to come and see Hannah. At first he refused but eventually he agreed. Hannah told the doctor that Mrs. Hudson had operated on her because a drunken woman hit her in the stomach. She said Mrs. Hudson had been very kind to her. Dr. Brown testified that her condition seemed to have improved when he saw her the next morning. The following night she died.

Martha’s attorney presented no defense. She was convicted of second-degree murder on May 3, 1859. She was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.